


The Old Words Cease to Rhyme

by aeli_kindara



Series: Supernatural Codas [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s15e01 Back and to the Future, Gen, POV Sam Winchester, Season/Series 15, also some faintly implied Dean/Cas, implied Sam/Rowena pre-relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 03:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21008678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: In which Team Free Will regroups, Belphegor is a brat, Sam has visions, and Rowena has a solution.





	The Old Words Cease to Rhyme

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "God Was Never On Your Side" (Motörhead).
> 
> UPDATE: the spectacular [vaudelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin) has written a [Dean/Cas companion piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21033767) to this fic! Go read it!

When they get back to the bunker, the first order of business is figuring out what to do with Belphegor.

Sam doesn’t need to say it out loud. He glances across at Dean, then Cas, putting the question in his eyes; Dean nods firmly, and Cas just furrows his eyebrows and looks away.

“This is so exciting,” says Belphegor, grinning Jack’s guileless smile as they lead the way down the corridor. “Are we having a _ slumber party? _ I’ve heard about those, you know — are they really li—”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Dean interrupts, opening the door to the dungeon. “C’mon. In here.”

Belphegor steps inside, and stops dead. At the far end of the room, the Devil’s trap sprawls on the floor, chair with its chains waiting at its center.

“Hang on,” he says, with reproach.

“No offense,” Dean says, “but you’re a demon. You’ve helped us out so far, but no telling what you really want. You’ll stay safe there for now.”

“I _ helped _ you,” says Belphegor.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees.

Sam shifts on his feet, ready in case Belphegor tries to make a move for freedom. But then Cas steps sharply forward, bends down, and picks the demon up, slinging him over his shoulder.

“Hey!” Belphegor hits Cas’s back, ineffectual fists beating against his trenchcoat. “Put me down!”

Cas does, in the chair at the center of the trap. Belphegor frowns back, his sunglasses askew, as Cas chains his wrists. “You didn’t have to _ do _ that. I’d have gone myself. Good faith, you know.”

Cas doesn’t answer. Dean doesn’t either, not even when Cas nearly smacks his shoulder on his wordless way out of the room.

“At least fix my glasses,” complains Belphegor. They’re hanging lopsided off his face, exposing the pits of Jack’s burned-out eyes behind them.

Sam starts forward. But Dean is faster, three rapid strides across the room. He leans down, almost gentle, and slides the glasses back up Jack’s nose. Hiding the truth once more.

When Dean turns back again, he meets Sam’s gaze and pauses. Huffs out a breath.

“I don’t know why you think I’d betray you. I’ve done nothing but help. Whose side do you think I’m on?”

With a minute roll of his eyes, Dean continues out of the room. Sam moves to follow. But he pauses in the doorway, a thought occurring to him that he can’t quite shake.

“Whose side _ are _ you on?” he asks, turning. “I mean, really. You can’t expect us to believe it’s ours. What are you getting out of this?”

“I told you,” starts the demon, “I want things to go back to —”

Sam shakes his head.

To his surprise, Belphegor draws up short. Then he sighs, dropping his shoulders. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m on yours.”

It takes Sam a moment to process the answer. “You mean —”

“I mean _ yours. _ Hell’s been too long without a king. And don’t get me wrong, I get the whole _ rex in absentia _ thing, but you know. The demons are getting restless.”

“I’m not,” says Sam, “I didn’t —”

“What?” demands Belphegor. “You’re not one of us? You’re not _ evil? _ You’re fighting _ God, _Sam. Isn’t that kind of our thing?”

“I —” starts Sam, and the vision hits him again.

_ Red light; a smile on his face. Dean on his knees; Dean’s neck twisting, a snap that echoes off the bunker walls — _

“I mean, _ I _dunno, man.” Belphegor stretches and settles against his bonds. “Seems to me like this has been the story since the beginning. Wanting those small, earthly things; a life of your own. Isn’t that why God threw Lucifer into Hell?”

_ Jack, dead at Sam’s feet. That’s already Sam’s fault. Dean dying next to him. Cas, turning with grief scribed on his face; lashing out. Your fault — _

_ Cas on the ground too. Mom. Dad. Jessica. Sam, smoothing a white suit down his chest. _

“What is that?” asks Belphegor sharply. “What are you —”

When Sam blinks back into focus, he’s got his left hand braced on the metal shelf, so tight his knuckles creak when he releases it. His right hand is clutching his shoulder.

“Nothing,” he says, dropping it. The ache is like fire, all the way down to his bones.

Belphegor doesn’t answer. But Sam can feel his eyeless gaze following him as he stumbles from the room.

\---

It’s an hour or so later — Sam’s made a first and second pass through the bunker’s archives for research materials on sealing off the hellmouth, and Rowena’s called again to confirm that she’s on her way — when Cas comes to find him in his room.

“Sam,” he says. “I should take another look at that wound.”

His eyes are on Sam’s left shoulder. Sam hesitates, rolling it uneasily. The constant ache has spread — maybe because he doesn’t have the adrenaline of a fight fueling him through it; maybe because he’s holding it strangely, taxing his muscles. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s getting worse.

In the corner of his eye, a vision invades: someone screams and dies. He doesn’t catch her face. He might not know her at all.

A twist of dark satisfaction in his gut. It’s not his, but it clings to him like oil.

“I’m — all right, Cas,” he says, forcing a smile.

Cas takes another step forward. “Sam —”

“Really.”

To his surprise, Cas sighs, shoulders drooping. “Can I be of assistance with your research, then? I’d — rather not —”

Sam pulls back. He’s being an idiot; Cas is still grieving Jack, can’t stand to be anywhere near Belphegor, can’t stand to be anywhere near Dean. “Sure.” He reaches for his pile of books and finds one that he hasn’t touched yet, then extends it to Cas.

Cas takes it with a small smile of thanks. But as he moves to pull out a second chair, there’s a sound from the doorway.

They both turn, and it’s Dean. He’s staring mutely, face set and closed.

Cas sighs, takes the book, and leaves, not touching Dean on his way out.

In the silence he leaves behind him, Sam sighs and leans back in his chair. “You two have got to —”

“Yeah, yeah,” interrupts Dean, moving inside. “Listen — we should take a closer look at that shoulder. Maybe open it up, see if there’s anything needs digging out.”

Sam wishes everyone would stop it about his wound. For a moment, in his view, Dean’s face is bloody and gasping — bearded. _ Sammy — _

“You said yourself, that gun doesn’t have bullets,” he counters. “I’m fine, Dean. Really.”

“Really?” Dean raises his eyebrows in challenge.

“_Really,_” Sam insists. And then, his temper flaring suddenly: “And it wasn’t — _ Band-Aids, _Dean, Jesus. I remember the first time a black dog ripped into me, you telling this insane joke about two hookers and a dead man’s leg —”

“Not a joke,” Dean interrupts with an automatic grin. “True story. Heard it from the hookers themselves.”

“— while you’re stitching me up with dental floss on the bathroom floor of that seedy motel in Dayton, and I kept drinking the whiskey you’re trying to use to clean the wound —”

“Sam, Jesus,” says Dean.

“First time I ever tried whiskey. I might’ve been thirteen. Dad was mad the next day it was gone. It wasn’t Band-Aids.”

_ Dean with a hellhound’s claws ripping into his gut; Dean sprawled and bloody and lifeless. In pieces. For Sam. _

“It was, for a while,” says Dean, at last. There’s a strange sort of hurt in his eyes, and his voice is quiet. “I know you don’t remember, maybe, but — it was for a while.”

Then he’s gone. Guilt slams into Sam, overdue, and he drops his forehead, shaky, to his desk. Tucks his face into the crook of his arm.

It’s the wrong arm; his shoulder twinges. He switches to the other, and tries to breathe. Then he raises his head, runs a hand through his hair, and gets back to work.

\---

When Sam runs out of books to read, he relocates to the library. Dean is long gone to his bedroom, and Cas stops by to return his own book — “nothing,” he says in response to Sam’s look, shaking his head — but then makes himself scarce again. “Dean gave Belphegor a box of magazines to look at,” he adds over his shoulder. “He told him they should keep him entertained.”

Sam has some sense of what variety of magazines Dean might have on hand. He resolves to avoid the dungeon for a while.

The clock creeps on, hours shifting. Visions dance in Sam’s eyes, and the blearier he gets, the harder they are to distinguish from reality. _ THE MANIPULATION OF GHOSTS, _ one monograph reads, which sounds promising. _ To damne a soule to Hell — _

There’s a picture next to the text. The picture is Sam. He’s smiling, eyes black, hand raised to snap someone’s neck.

“Samuel?”

Sam rubs his eyes hastily, with both hands, and his shoulder gives a twinge so hard he nearly buckles over. He gasps through it, trying to peer through the hazy layers of vision and reality, and sees Rowena, standing on top of the bunker stairs.

“Sam,” she says again, descending. He can’t tell if she’s hurrying or if his sense of time is running away from him; her face looks pale, maybe even worried.

He grimaces. It’s almost funny, that he hasn’t seen any visions yet of a dead Rowena, when she’s the one he _ knows _ he’s doomed to kill.

Then she’s crouched beside him, one hand on his arm. “Have ye _ slept? _ Idiot lads, thinking you can _ save the world _ without a beauty rest — _ up. _ Hush now, I’ll read your books for you, they’ll still be there in the morning, come, come —”

Sam stumbles, his shoulder on fire, but he lets her lead him, tripping and cajoling, back down the corridor to his room.

He thinks she squeezes somewhere rather personal at some point, but he’ll never be quite sure in the morning.

\---

“Rowena.”

It’s the next day. The two of them are sitting across the library table from each other, back at work; Dean and Cas are in Harlan, checking on the evacuation, trying to keep everyone happy and the situation from spiraling out of control. Maybe they’ll actually talk today; maybe they’ll resolve some of the anger that’s eating them.

Hopefully they’ll both come home in one piece.

Rowena looks back at him and purses her lips, which Sam takes for permission to go on.

It’s now or never. He draws in a deep breath. The visions are better, after a night’s sleep, but they’re still flickering in the periphery of his vision; occasionally hitting him straight to the chest. “Could you — look at something for me?”

He starts unbuttoning his shirt without waiting for her answer. She tilts her head, eyes sparking with interest. “Well _ Samuel, _ I thought you’d never —”

He pulls the fabric aside to reveal the wound. Rowena stops short.

“What is this?”

Sam grimaces, glancing down at the mark on his shoulder where the Equalizer struck. It looks like it’s spread. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Slowly, Rowena rises from her chair. Her gown swishes smoothly around her hips as she circles the table; then she pauses, face unreadable. Sam swallows and blinks up at her. To his relief, her face doesn’t flicker to anything else — no blood, no snapped neck, no lips stretched in a silent scream.

“Hm,” says Rowena. At last, she reaches out to hold her palm over the wound. “_Possim rei huius cognoscere causas _—”

When Cas had tried to heal it, yesterday, Sam’s whole body had flared up in agony. Now, he feels more of a cool prickling. He braces himself, but no visions come.

“It’s not the _cause _that I’m unsure about, really,” he confesses. “It happened when I shot God with a weapon designed to fire a — wave of multidimensional energy via a balanced quantum link.”

Rowena drops her hand. “You shot _ God?_”

Sam offers her a weak smile. “Yes?”

But she asks no further questions, just mutters to herself and changes the incantation slightly. She recites it again, and once more, then lowers her palm.

For a long moment, she just stands there, looking contemplative. “Well?” Sam asks, and Rowena blinks.

“It seems quite simple, really,” she says, at last. “This _ quantum link _ you mentioned — it’s still in place.”

Sam blinks. “So — what does that mean?”

“It means —” Rowena purses her lips. “It means your wound is infected. By — _ God. _ So to speak.”

Sam’s chest tightens. “So these visions —”

“Visions?” she repeats sharply, then sighs. Sam opens his mouth for a stumbling explanation, an apology, but he never has to voice it. “Yes, it makes sense. Think of it like one of your — _ organ transplants._” She shudders. “Your body is rejecting what doesn’t belong there, and your mind is glimpsing the things God has planned. Or is thinking of planning. It _ could _ be useful, if you could control it.”

Sam swallows. “I can’t,” he confesses. “Not right now. It’s — I’m watching the people I love die, all day. I’m watching _ myself _ kill them.”

Rowena shakes her head. “He is a _ nasty _ one, your deity.”

At that, Sam can’t help but smile. “I recall you cozying up to him. Not that long ago.”

He’s rewarded by a look of disdain. “A woman has _ needs, _ Samuel. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

“Really? You and — did he — you know what? Never mind.” Sam sighs. “Is there anything I can do about it?”

Rowena’s gaze sharpens. “That depends,” she says, slowly. “Do you have any visions of _ me?” _

The question catches him by surprise. “Of — you? Not — no. How did you —”

“Show me your gun, please.”

For a moment, Sam thinks it’s an innuendo. But she raises her eyebrows at him, tapping her fingernails on the back of the chair, so Sam does — pulls it from the waistband at the back of his jeans. He doesn’t usually keep it on him, inside the bunker, but today — today, he’s taking no chances.

“Hm,” says Rowena.

“It’s not the Equalizer,” Sam tells her. “That’s — I think Dean must have that with him.” He’s not sure he wants to think about that too hard.

“What? Oh, it doesn’t matter,” says Rowena. “Here, let me have that.”

Her fingers wrap around Sam’s, freeing them from his pistol’s grip. Then she takes it in both hands, and presses the muzzle to the bare skin of his wound, and shoots him.

\---

Sam yells. Pain explodes through his shoulder, his arm; he tips over backward, chair crashing onto the library’s hardwood floor.

He’s bleeding; he gasps, struggling to reach to put pressure on the wound — has Rowena betrayed them? Can Belphegor hear from the dungeon; is there any chance of his escaping and coming to Sam’s aid? Can he reach his own gun —

“Oh, hush,” says Rowena, kneeling over him. “So _ dramatic, _ you Winchesters. _ Mahday, eelohtah sahn. Serloh, eelohtah._” And the pain in his shoulder is fading, fading. The bullet pops out and rolls on the floor with a _ plink. _ Gasping, Sam turns to see the knot of infected tissue receding, his skin knitting together until all that’s left is a single, dark dot.

“What did you _ do?” _ he demands. But for the first time all day, there’s nothing flitting at the edges of his vision; no horrors he can sense looming just out of sight.

“I overrode your quantum link,” Rowena tells him, distracted, “with one of my own. Simple, really. It’s still _ there, _ but it won’t overpower you anymore.”

“You — overrode it,” repeats Sam. “But you didn’t have the Equalizer.”

Rowena sniffs. “Oh, I don’t need _ that _ thing. Typical men, all obsessed with their toys when a simple magical gradient will do. I don’t need to _ make _ a link between us, Samuel — _ we _ already have one. Or have you forgotten you’re going to kill me?”

“I —”

He hasn’t. He hasn’t, and he hates it, and he doesn’t know if he can look Rowena in the eye. She shouldn’t be here; he shouldn’t be asking this of her, any of this, when he knows — when _ she _ knows —

She bends close. Her voice is dark and glittering. “Let me live my life how I want it, Samuel,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek.

Rowena doesn’t help him to his feet. She stands back and watches, though, still smiling like she knows something he doesn’t. Sam frowns. “I’m not going to get — _ your _ visions now, am I?”

Rowena’s smile deepens. She steps forward to help him smooth his shirt back over his chest. She has to stand on her tiptoes to whisper into his ear.

“If you want _ those, _ you’re going to have to ask.”

\---

When the door opens to admit Dean and Cas, they’re moving a little more easily. There’s still a tension in the air between them, but it’s a strange one, of a different sort. Sam sees Dean touch Cas’s shoulder, briefly, as they start down the stairs.

“Hey,” he says, voice gruff, dropping his duffel on the table. “We got everyone pretty settled down, we think, but not for long. Real feds are on their way tomorrow. You two got anything?”

Sam glances over at Rowena. The wound in his shoulder twinges, but it doesn’t do more than that.

“Yeah,” he says. “We might need Belphegor’s help. But we think we’ve got the makings of a plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable on [tumblr](https://gravelghosts.tumblr.com/post/188448178439/the-old-words-cease-to-rhyme-1501-coda-29k) and that jazz.
> 
> The incredible [vaudelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin) has written a [Dean/Cas companion piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21033767) to this fic! If you want to know what they get up to while checking in at the high school, go read. :D


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